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never again will you open a finished wash-cycle to find your whole laundry covered in paper confetti or risk heavy repair bills when you forgot to empty that pocketful of spare change.
the laundry scanning system is a rapid method of scanning your wash as you slowly pass each item through the front
loading door into the main compartment of the machine. coins, wodges of paper, metallic strips in banknotes are all immediately displayed on the small screen found next to the wash cycle knob.
it will also alert you to the fact that a small pet or child has crawled inside for a nap.
I read this for example... I think a bleeping display would remind you...
http://www.rapiscan...personnel_main.html
...to the fact that stuff lurks in pockets. perhaps a bleeping display is all that is necessary (for women anyway)! [po, Dec 27 2004]
[link]
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I hope this gets baked soon. I have never once done the wash without leaving something unfortunate in my pockets. Usually tissues, change, pencils, notepads, and occasionally small snacks; so far no children or pets that I have noticed. Then again, I haven't been checking. + for the reminder. |
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...Ah, the musical sound of rock collections and legos tumbling around in the washing machine. symphonic to the ear of every loving parent... |
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...The joy of discovery when you find your ball point after the rinse cycle... |
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...the beauty of a dryer influenced sculpture of melted crayons, permanently attached to a new shirt... |
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It brings a tear to my eye that you would deprive millions of these simple pleasures. + |
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I'll buy one when it beeps if you try to put a red in a load of whites....[+] |
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I want to know how does the scan work? If you need to pass each item "slowly" why not just check the pocket manually? Wouldn't that accomplish the same task?? Bone |
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You could probably pick up children and pets by infrared. |
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Nice. I once washed [jonthegeologist]'s driving license and became least popular girlfriend for the day. |
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yes but it's *clean* now. no pleasing some folk! |
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That's what I said. Didn't go down so well. I was just trying to help, honest! |
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This should get baked with the additional function of telling the idiot whos operating it [guess who] that he has accidentally added a red shirt (that runs) to a fully white load. I ended up with a pink wardrobe. |
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Just read Norm's anno. Sorry for the repeat. |
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Our wash day problems stem more from non-metallic items like cat fur and tissues. But how will your device distinguish zips and rivets from pocket items? |
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Why bother? It all recoverable as bellybutton lint. |
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I also dislike the 'slowly pass' aspect. I seldom have trouble with items left in pockets, but have trouble keeping the darks and the lights separate. Let's hear some scanning and separating ideas! |
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It wouldn't be too hard to catch some items - crayons, lipsticks, etc... - before the water made them bleed and stain other clothes in the same load. We wouldn't need to make a slow pass over anything either. Crayons and the like are petroleum-based. By adding a simple RFID tag to the inside of the pockets when the clothes are manufactured (especially children's clothes) the machine could monitor for a warning message coming from the pocket and send out an alarm. Rough details - the machine sends a signal through the load which gets picked up by all the tags in it. The tags convert the power recieved into a small current that powers a petroleum sensor that's also on the tag. If the sensor picks up petroleum it loops the current back into the RFID tag to change the signal that gets sent back, giving the washer its cue to sound the alarm. Hmm...maybe this should be added as a separate idea. |
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RFIDs can conceivably solve the red socks in the white wash problem depending on the discrimination limits. |
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bristolz - You're right, and there's an even easier way to use them to solve the red socks in a white wash problem. Each tag just has to respond with a universal numeric identifier for its color. The logic board on the washing machine would be programmed to know which colors could be mixed and sound an alarm if it found incompatible types. |
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Again, that's just a discrimination problem. My reference is to the absolute maximum number of tags that can de discerned at once. |
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"Institute of Applied Physics.Dept for Automation. |
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Based in Russia, the Institute offers an active-tag RFID system with an effective control area of 1 square kilometer (outdoors) or 1,000 square meters (indoors). Tags can be read at distances up to 500 meters, with a positioning accuracy of 1 meter. Maximum number of tags is 10,000." |
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The best I could find in the U.S. was a simultaneous reading of 64 tags after a quick review, so somewhere between the two might be a reasonable guess. |
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all very well but its the crumpled tissue that is my main bugbear |
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red socks! who wears red socks? |
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Well, that's certainly up from the 40 or so the last time I looked which seemed a bit low for a full load of clothing. |
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why not add in a robotic presorter. it would grab an item from the main pile, read the tag, put item in a bin with similar items. rejects, for what ever reason, get put aside.
when a bin is a full load the robot inserts the entire bin in its washer then later moves it to its dryer. |
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[po] this is a great idea, but how does the machine scan the clothes? I can see how a scan for metal would be easy enough but paper? |
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I thought that the link explained it. |
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Ah yes, silly me! I think you'd still need the screen to see paper - don't suppose the scanner could distinguish that from clothes except in a visual manner. [+] |
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How about extend the idea? |
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Instead of the washing intructions label on the clothes, it has a tiny waterproof chip. This can be scanned by the machine to see what setting to wash on. |
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You could even have more than one washer built into one machine, and let the machine sort out your clothes. |
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Heck, you could even turn it into a personal robot that would do your bidding. |
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What about some personal responsibility for our stuff, eh? |
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